Collectivism after Modernism - autonomous learning - Blogs

2. After the “Descent to the Everyday”:
Japanese Collectivism from Hi Red
Center to The Play, 1964–1973
REIKO TOMII
Where do we begin a study of “collectivism after modernism” in
Japan? One possible—and obvious—place is Gutai, arguably the best-known
Japanese avant-garde collective in post-1945 world art. Granted, no study
of postwar collectivism will be complete without Gutai—or Gutai Art Association
(Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai) in its full name—which was founded in
Ashiya, a town west of Osaka, in 1954. However, Gutai is a collective unlike
any other: it was ultimately an enterprise of its charismatic leader Yoshihara
Jiro, the esteemed abstract painter and a senior member of the art world,
who would be called “Mr. Gutai.” 1 (The group was disbanded in 1972 after
Yoshihara’s untimely death.) He imaginatively expanded and ingeniously
exploited the tradition of “exhibition collectivism,” while he played the role
of mentor to the other, much younger members, issuing his famous instructions,
“Never imitate others! Make something that never existed!” 2 On his
part, he practiced what he preached, by providing unprecedented exhibition
opportunities, that is, the famed outdoor and on-stage presentations of
1955–58. In an incubator of innovative experimentation created by Yoshihara,
Gutai thrived. Organizationally, it boasted a relatively large membership with
an aggregate roster of Wfty-nine members. 3 Artistically, the members accomplished
what they set out to do: “We aspire to present a concrete (gutai-teki)
proof that our spirit is free,” as proclaimed by Yoshihara in 1955 in the inaugural
issue of the journal Gutai. 4
Gutai produced a host of landmark achievements, by “breaking
open the object” 5 and pointing to the future of art in Anti-Art (Han-geijutsu).
There were, to name a few, such action-based works as Shiraga Kazuo’s Challenging
Mud (1955), Tanaka Atsuko’s Electric Dress (1956), and Murakami
Saburo’s Passage (breaking twenty-one paper screens; 1956). Gutai’s place
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